Snapchat picks London as its international headquarters

10 January 2017
| Author: br-admin

Messaging app Snapchat has chosen London as the home of its international headquarters in a vote of confidence for the UK as it prepares for Brexit.

The Los Angeles-based group, which has 150 million users a day worldwide, confirmed it will book all sales made outside the US and where it has no local entity in Britain - rather than following the lead of rivals such as Google and Apple in choosing Ireland or the Netherlands to take advantage of lower-tax regimes.

Snap Inc said the UK's strong creative industries made it "a great place to build a global business".

Claire Valoti, general manager of Snap Group in the UK, added: "We believe in the UK creative industries.

"The UK is where our advertising clients are, where more than 10 million daily Snapchatters are, and where we've already begun to hire talent."

Snap, which is planning a US stock market flotation this year with a reported valuation of up to 25 billion US dollars (£20.6 billion), is set to open a new site near to its existing office in London's Soho and hire more staff, including a small number of engineers.